Color Night Pinhole Panoramics

This was, to me, a bit of a risk-taking. I’ve done each of the components of these images before, in some way shape or form, but never the combination of all at once. I’ve done pinhole. I’ve done panoramic. I’ve done long exposures. I’ve done color. I’ve done multiple exposures. But never color long exposure panoramic pinholes, and even a color panoramic long exposure multiple exposure pinhole. So these are the results of my experiments.

The first frame is taken from the intersection of Park Road and 14th Street, looking down 14th Street toward the DC USA shopping complex. This was a 12-minute exposure, using the exposure calculator from my pinhole camera. This was at twilight, thus the (relatively) shorter exposure.

This next scene is at the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road in Adams Morgan. I love the unpredictability of this kind of photography – you know you’ll get patterns of light, and can kind of figure out where they’ll be, but knowing for example that in the span of the 25 minutes of this exposure a city bus would pull through and stop at the light long enough for Woodley Park to dangle mid-scene like a disembodied phantom, well, I couldn’t have predicted or planned that, especially WHERE in the scene it was going to show up.

This last scene was a real experiment – Not only did I make a total of a 25 minute exposure, but halfway through I moved the camera about 15 feet closer to the primary subject and re-started the exposure.

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2 thoughts on “Color Night Pinhole Panoramics”

Beautiful! It’s a pitty that the images are too small to really appreciatte all the details, but it seems to me that you used a pretty sharp pinhole camera. Anyways the images are very very interesting, specially the one that opens and ends the article, with that double exposure. Beautiful, i enjoyed it so much!

About DC Photoartist

Scott Davis is a large format photographer working with antique and historic photographic processes. His work has been exhibited internationally. He is a published author on platinum/palladium printing, and teaches classes in platinum/palladium and gum bichromate techniques. His personal work includes the DC cityscape and the human figure.